Saturday, October 17, 1:00 to 2:15pm, Gene Siskel Film Center
Sara Varon, a cartoonist, illustrator, printmaker, and SAIC alum originally from Chicago, is known for bridging alternative comics and children's book publishing. Her work, usually populated with anthropomorphic funny animals, is squarely in the tradition of children's comics and yet disarmingly personal. She stakes out urban territories but imbues them with neighborliness and warmth, what Thought Balloonists' Craig Fischer has called "a healing, utopian vision of friendship and community." At the same time, her work speaks honestly to issues of separation, loss, sorrow, and self-doubt, bringing an emotional depth that often catches readers by surprise.
Regarding her delightful yet subtly melancholy graphic novel Robot Dreams (First Second Books, 2007), Varon told Kirkus Reviews,
[It's] about everyone who ever lost or grew out of a friendship. Sometimes in our own lives, things go surprisingly wrong or work out differently than we would want or expect. I hope readers will find it interesting to see how my two characters make the best of their bad deal. [It] sounds kind of gloomy, and strange. But the characters still have fun at this odd moment in their lives, even in the midst of unhappiness, just like we all do.
This same mix of matter-of-factness and soulfulness characterizes all of Varon's work, along with love of place and an attention to the daily environments in which we live our lives. Her offbeat approach to comics testifies to her unusual artistic background, well evoked by Fischer:
As a child growing up in Chicago, Varon loved Jay Ward cartoons and Donald Duck comics, and hated superheroes. As a grown-up, she discovered [Craig Thompson's] Goodbye, Chunky Rice during a visit to [Chicago's] alt-store Quimby's, and went back and bought more graphic novels by artists like Brian Biggs, Ted Stearn and the Actus Tragicus collective. Varon studied animation at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and one of her cartoons, The Tongue (1997), showed at the SXSW Music Festival in Austin and received a "Director's Citation" from the prestigious Black Maria Film and Video Festival. In September 2000, Varon moved to New York to attend graduate school, and in 2002 earned an MFA in illustration from the School of Visual Arts... Since then, her art has appeared in the New York Times, Nickelodeon magazine, and other high profile venues, although there remains an appealingly low-fi aspect to her career too...
Varon's book-length works include her two graphic novels, Robot Dreams, singled out by Kirkus Reviews and Publishers Weekly as one of the best books of 2007, and her debut Sweaterweather (Alternative Comics, 2003), as well as the wordless picture books Chicken and Cat Clean Up (Scholastic, 2009) and its predecessor, Chicken and Cat (Scholastic, 2006), a Parents' Choice Silver Honor award winner.
Varon has also contributed to such anthologies as Kramer's Ergot, Rosetta, Scheherazade, and Declare Yourself; created work for the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis; and collaborated with ceramicist Ayumi Horie. In addition, she has been a prolific illustrator (her other clients include Bark Magazine, the Chicago Animal Care and Control Department, and The National Post) and printmaker, and she currently works in the printshop at the School
of Visual Arts.
Varon now lives in Brooklyn, where, she says, she likes to "ride her bike,
see movies, and hang out with dogs." And box, reportedly. She is currently working on more books to be published by First Second. ICAF is proud to be able to welcome Sara back to SAIC for a return visit!
You can find out more about Sara Varon's work at her website, www.chickenopolis.com.
